


The Pendulum in The Web

by imdeadtiredTM



Category: Danny Phantom, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: (Almost), Angst and Humor, Aunt May does not know that Peter Parker is Spiderman, Best Friends, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Endgame? I don't know her, Friends to Lovers, Horror, I might add venom and eddie brock if im feeling cute, In this fic we will permit Peter going through grief of losing his beloved uncle, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Rare Pairings, Steve rogers does NOT go back in time, TRIGGER WARNING there's a gun and a brief flashback, The divine comedy of everyone thinking that peters power comes from his suit, after infinity war but pre far from home, and finding out that they're very, and i was right, because that reveal had NO drama, but also love, but heres what I do know, clearly canon is GARBAGE and im raking through the scraps, edit of tags, everything else? garbage, fuck that noise, god i avoided that movie for YEARS, i watched infinity war because thats when i set this fic, if that makes sense, imma be real with you i have little to no idea on where this is gonna go, literally I did not watch it, might also add the spiderverse, now I know EXACTLY what I'm doing, on a scale of 10 my overthinking is at 12 1/2, purely bc that would be so SO funny to me, purely because i want the angst of peter being basically dead for 4 years, some violence, then being snapped back along with everyone else, there's some horror/horror influence, this is ultimately a love story, tony is still dead im sorry, very wrong, watching it was a mistake, where was the flare? The pizazz?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imdeadtiredTM/pseuds/imdeadtiredTM
Summary: After Danny was forced through a portal and landed in New York, he and Spiderman sit in a bar and just, talk.It’s been deserted a long time ago, it's dusty, and the pipes don’t work. But there’s one light that still flickers on and it’s quiet aside from when the train passes through, and at the least, nobody has to go home yet.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Peter Parker, Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson, Danny Fenton/Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Comments: 41
Kudos: 233





	1. A ghost and a spider walk into a bar

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Ghost of Heroes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17915615) by [Enigmaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigmaris/pseuds/Enigmaris), [ScarletNightFury](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletNightFury/pseuds/ScarletNightFury). 



The portal flared as Danny crashed out of it and slammed against the brick wall with a wet crack. He fell six feet down and flops to the ground with a hiss as a ghost with the face of an anglerfish, big pupilless eyes with tall teeth protruding from its gumless, lipless bottom jaw, the body of an eel, and the scales of a snake – writhes and squirms aimlessly out of the portal. Five feet wide and the length equal to a skyscraper, the portal builds up pressure and pops like a pimple when it finally coils out. Its body gleaming from the bright florescent pink and blue neon signs as it makes a rattle and cranes its neck over Danny. Its jaws slowly creaked open, reeking of rotting fish.

Danny can feel his flesh and bone correct and knit together with vigor as he stands upright. With black and green bruises already forming under the hazmat suit, Danny widens his stance as pain and determination etch deep lines into his face. Raising his raw fists teaming with green energy.

Head tilted, ready to bite and swallow, it strikes.

However, before Danny can take the shot, a red blur comes from the corner of his eye and before he knows it- the air around him swishes and he’s up in the air being held by some red guy in a mask. Swinging by a thin silver string – Danny blinks and rather than wince, panic, or go through his grip like a fistful of water, he loops one arm around the neck as the other stretches over the strangers shoulder and fires a long stream of green that burrows and bites into the hide of the beast. It screams and disappears into the ground, the concrete groans as it disappears.

“Did you get it?” The stranger asks over the wind.

“Yeah.”

“From _here_?!”

“Yup.”

“ _Nice_ shot!”

Danny’s arm goes limp. “Thanks.”

The swing reaches its peak of its ark, and at the slight turn of the stranger’s shoulders and hips they whip around. Only to see the wide, hollow, dead-end alleyway. The stranger lets go of their silver rope and gently lands on their feet, plopping Danny down next to him gentler-still. “Oh no,” The stranger gives a nervous chuckle. “It’s gone.”

Blue mist as thick as cotton pools out of Danny’s mouth and teeth as it curls up in the air. Danny glowers, “Not quite.”

“Where is it?”

“That’s the thing, it’s probably invisible.”

“ _Invisible_?!”

As if on que, there’s an ear-piercing roar. The stranger squeaks as he rears back and punches thin air, only for his fist to make the sound of a dense ‘thud’. The beast appears all at once and collapsed on the ground. “… You hit it.” Danny looks down at the beast and looks back at the stranger. “You _hit_ it.” He repeats. “While it was invisible. With no ghost tracking devises.”

“It was a gut feeling.” The stranger had the audacity to say it shyly.

“ _Holy shit_. Nice shot.”

“Thank you.” A beat. “Wait. With a what? It’s a what?”

“Ghost.” Danny whipped out the Thermos and popped off the top. The stranger stared as it was sucked into the metal canister.

“Why…” The stranger says slowly. “Didn’t you just do that the first place?”

“It’s not a guarantee. It doesn’t work by simply just pointing at them right. The ghosts have to be weakened first. Trust me. I’ve tried _repeatedly_.”

“Ah.” The stranger says with an air of sophistication and nods. “Like Pokémon.”

Danny nods solemnly. “Yes. Pokémo _n_ exactly.”

There’s a comfortable silence that settles between them. The wind whistles and Danny rubbed his eyes.

“Hey,” he hit the side of the stranger’s arm. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Uh.” The stranger looked down at his feet then up at the inky-black sky like it had answers. “1:30?”

Sounding as dead as he was, Danny’s voice drips. “Lovely.” A beat. “Do you want to sit down for a minute somewhere before we drag ourselves home?”

“Yeah.” The stranger said, equally beat down and tired. “Yeah, ok.”

They find an old closed-down bar in a run-down street and Danny phazes the rusted lock through. It clattered on the ground. Danny swung the door wide and gave a little bow. “After you.”

“Thanks,”

They both sit down. The New York lights show in the windows as neon signs sputter and flash. There was a lone light that hung over the two of them, swaying with the rumbling of the nearby train as they each sat on a stool, catching their breath. The place has dust everywhere and it’s completely barren. Danny laid down with his arm as a cushion for his head and the guy with a spider-themed suit leans on the counter, his head placed between his hands.

After a while Danny speaks. “A ghost and a spider sit together in a bar.” Danny says as he looked down at the counter, with its unpolished wood and chipped edges. “Sounds like the start of a good joke.”

The guy is staring. He can tell even with the mask as Danny slowly leans upright again. Already Danny can guess at what he’s looking at even when he can’t see their eyes waver, move, and linger. The odd glow, the white hair and radium green eyes. Maybe they’re even looking at knobs of his spinal cord as he starts sitting upright. Those who knows of ghosts, the real ones, know well enough that they shouldn’t have bones. “… Not to be rude, but who are you exactly?” The stranger asks. The _what_ , the real question, is in there but at least the masked guy is polite enough not to ask it outright.

“Phantom,” He says with much gusto and drama. Gesturing to himself with flare equal to a reject magician. “Is the name. Fighting crime is the game.” His hands still. “You?” The bags under his eyes are a dark blue. If he weren’t dead already, he’d feel the years waxing off of his life every second he kept his eyeballs peeled open instead of crawling into bed.

“I’m Spiderman.” Spiderman holds out a hand and Phantom shakes it.

“That’s almost more creative than Phantom.”

Spiderman snorted and said, “It’s to the point, we gotta at least give ourselves that.” Spiderman hesitates and doesn’t let go. Danny doesn’t know if it’s because Spiderman was so tired he simply forgot or if there was a another reason altogether. Regardless, Danny re-adjusts his grip and rests their joint hands on the wooden counter.

“You know,” Spiderman muses aloud, “I didn’t know there were other superheroes my age.”

Theirs a lot to unpack in that. Danny furrows his brows as his foggy mind tries to churn and breath his thoughts back into clarity. “There are other superheroes? Holy shit _I’m_ a superhero?!”

“You… didn’t know?”

“I just- I don’t know. I didn’t think of it that way?”

“No, no- well, there’s that, but what I meant that you didn’t know there are others?”

“I mean,” Danny shrugs, “It never shows up online? Or on the news?”

Spiderman stares. “New York was demolished at least three times, and that’s being generous. Literally half of the population of the _universe_ disappeared at one point. Aliens are real and public knowledge. None- _none_ of this sounds familiar?”

“Aliens are _what_ now?!” Danny shrieked, now wide awake.

“Wait.” Spiderman lets go and pressed his hands against the sides of his head as if to try and stop his mind from blowing up. “Wait, wait, _wait_. Half- _half_ of wherever-you-live disappears for four years and that raised _no_ questions?!”

“Nobody disappeared?” Danny then squints. “Wait. People disappeared for _four years_?! When you say disappear do you mean, like, someone _took_ them or…?”

“Naw man, I mean wiped from existence. Gone. Vanished. Good as dead. Trust me on this.”

Danny’s brows nearly flew off. “Christ on a stick.”

“Are you telling me you’ve heard _none_ of this?!”

“Hell no! What about Amity?”

“Amity?”

“Amity Park? Do you know anything about Amity park? Guys in White? Ghost attacks?!”

“No?!”

“ _Bruh_.” Danny leans back, covering his hands with his face. “Our entire town was sucked into an alternative, undead diminution for like a week! We were stuck in purgatory! Ghosts have _literally_ tried to take over the world!”

“I didn’t know ghosts were real until _today_! Are _you_ a ghost?!”

“I sure am!”

“What the heck!”

Danny was then hit with a moment of lucidity. Clips and flashes are strung together, and an idea flickered. The ghost portal, the Guys in white, their sudden appearance and existence. His parents moving to Amity for the highest and continuous ectoplasm energy flashes. Men in suits at the corner of his eye for as long as Danny could remember, not thinking much of it until later in life. Danny rubs his eyes.

“Holy crap.” Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “ _Freaking_ Guys in White. Geez, they must have the entire network- news reports, internet, phone calls- all under tight control. For, god, _years_? At least four– five years? And ectoplasm has bizarre effects on the fabric of reality and our town radiates with the stuff. It must’ve counted as some sort of weird loophole or shield to… whatever happened to the rest of the universe.”

“Honestly?” Spiderman said, “Not the craziest thing I’ve heard. Could’ve even been that your town was fine, but another town disappeared entirely as compensation.”

“Hmm.” Danny nodded in agreement. “Maybe even a combo of the two.”

A million questions shot through Danny’s mind and revolved round and round like the barrel of a gun during Russian roulette. There was the Guys In White and the insane dedication and paranoia to isolate his town for years. Every oddly misplaced static, the commercials and shows that _only_ came from Amity, the bad connections, the lack of internet, the terrible quality in phone calls. The roadblocks when they drove too far, the security, the canceled field trips. The ridiculous paperwork that had to be filed if you wanted to leave, the lack of visits from distant relatives. Hell, it must be the reason _why_ no one moved out of Amity Park when the ghosts came.

Danny wants to ask Spiderman more about the disappearance, but the guy sits far too still in his seat and fiddles with his hands. Danny frowns and decides it’s best not to ask, at least for now.

“Are you serious about the aliens?” Danny asks instead.

“Dead serious.” There was a pause and the white lens that cover Spiderman’s eyes widen. “ _Wait_ – “

Danny crackled and winked. “Naw, it’s all good. Please, by all means, make, _the puns_.”

Spiderman relaxed, and there’s a shift or a gleam that Danny can’t explain. Danny can’t see his face, yet Danny can already recon that he made a dire mistake, and there will now be no stopping Spiderman.

“Duly noted.” Spiderman said coolly and it only feeds Danny’s suspicion.

“You realize that this is going to be a two-way street? Right?”

“Wouldent want it any other way.” Somehow, marvelously, Danny could hear Spiderman winking back.

Suddenly, Danny realized that they’re already talking like they’ve made plans to meet again. It takes nearly all of his calm and resolve not to pump his fists in the air or to vibrate in his seat. There’s a pounding in his chest and he’s trying to not creep the guy out by having his face split into two from grinning without context.

What Danny supposes, in the superhero biz, there probably aren’t any phone numbers and DMs to exchange when it’s practically guaranteed both parties have a secret identity. “Tomorrow at 10PM do you want to meet up here again?”

“Oh sure! But why 10PM?”

“uhhh… because... why not?”

Spiderman shrugged. “Fair enough.”

The flight was long and hard, he couldn’t just have portals re-appear. And when he does get back, he has a little over two hours left to ‘fall asleep’. But that was most nights, anyway. And at least this time, it ended far more pleasantly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it was so short! it was originally a tumblr post, the 2nd chapter should be much longer.
> 
> If you want more content/DM me, my tumblr is imdeadtiredTM


	2. Darting in And Out of The Dark

Peter Parker watches the rain splatter on the only window, a little thing at the top of the door that gives a view of the New York street from the gutter’s perspective, before he sees Phantom drift down the steps – the edges of him blurred like fog or mist – and phases through, air ringing as he does so. Phantom’s white hair drips and clings to his face from the rain, water droplets stream down and sink into the creases of his black, rubber, and baggy hazmat suit. An odd thing, wearing that rather than a skin-tight spandex or something of a familiar nature as most people who practice superhero work do.

Lightning strikes and with a low rumble, a surge of bright white light luminates the abandoned bar. Behind Phantom, the lamps shine against the wet asphalt. That, added with the flickering neon advertisements, Phantoms glow, and arsenic green eyes, they all show the bruise that covered his left temple on one side and the bright green cut under his eye that curves with his cheekbone on the other side of his face.

“Long night?” Peter asks.

Phantom slides onto the seat next to him. “Yeah, but nothing unusual.”

Peter hummed. Thankfully, Phantom can’t see that Peter’s face isn’t much better. His lip’s busted and he keeps tasting copper, while his eye is swollen from a nasty hit. It should clear up soon.

“Got hit by a building. You?”

“Skulker,” Phantom said. “A robot-slash-ghost literally after my skin.”

“Ew, one of those collector guys?” Under his mask, Peter’s face tightens, “Yikes.”

Phantom shrugged before a frown settles on his face. “What do you mean by ‘hit by a building’?”

“Tried to stop it from collapsing until everybody left.”

“Ah,” Phantom said, looking straight ahead. “One of those.

“Yeah.” Peter glanced once more at Phantom’s swollen forehead. Now that Phantom was much closer, he could see the angry blood vessels, and how far-spread the bruise was. While the temple and his eye socket were a dark black, it creeped across his face, fading from blue to green, the edges a bright yellow. Peter can’t see under the hazmat suit, but he’s willing to bet that the bruise goes down his neck, shoulders, upper back, and torso. “I’m sorry about your face.”

Phantom snorted and Peter backtracks.

“It’s- well- it’s a nice face, that’s not what I –”

It’s alright, I know what you mean.” Phantom makes a sly smirk. “Besides, out of the two of us, one wears a mask.”

Peter mocked a gasp as one hand clenched over his heart. “Rude!”

Phantom’s laugh rivaled the boom of thunder as lightning painted the small barren bar white once more while the light above flickers and sway with the rumbles.

Peter glance around the room and grimaces, it was in extraordinarily terrible condition. There are mice, or maybe even rat droppings scattered on the ground, the room looked hazy from the dust, and by the corners there’s rot and mold.

“This.” Peter said, “is _disgusting_.”

“Uh. Oh, wow.” Phantom’s face twists and his nose wrinkles. “Ew... _Ew_.

Above them a spider weaves its web. Despite that it was just being made, dust particles were already clinging to it. Phantom blinked before he turns back to Peter.

“Hey,”

“Yeah?”

“Can you summon spiders?”

“No.” Peter says flatly, “I can’t.”

“So, you’ve made an attempt?”

“… no.”

“Oh my god,” Phantom grins, “You _need_ to at least try.”

“Nothing is going to happen!”

“Why not? We both already have superpowers! Why not add Disney-style arachnid communication?”

“Because! My powers restrict to my Spidey sense –”

“ _Spidey sense_?”

“– Super strength, super senses, sticky hands and feet, and super healing!”

“Wait. Wait, wait.” Phantom held up his hands. “Stop. I may not know my bugs, but none of that is soly characteristic to spiders.”

“I shoot webs!”

“Then why didn’t you add that to your list of powers?”

Peter, seen by none, makes a face. “Because…”

“Because?”

“I have web shooters.” He confessed. “It’s a thing I made that shoots webs for me.”

“Ok, so we’re back to square one! None of your abilities are spider-like!”

“Spiders stick on walls!”

“So do mosquitos! Hell, you’d even get to keep your red-colored theme! On that note, flies stick on walls, stinkbugs, some species of frogs, an extremely persistent monkey could climb on walls! You don’t even need the bug theme!”

“Spiders aren’t bugs!”

Phantom shakes his head, “whatever, look, what I’m saying is: summoning spiders would be a, uniquely, spider-like thing.” He taps the bar counter, “You have to see if you can summon spiders.” He points to Peter, “Or talk to them. _Something_ that involves _only_ spiders.” Phantom then squints. “Wait. Why did you even decide to go with a spider theme?”

“Because I got my powers from a spider!”

“Like, a special spider? You saved or befriended some sort of spider-god-thingy that granted superpowers? Super spider? Some sort of mega –”

“No! It- it might’ve been radioactive? I got a spider bite at a field trip and then, boom. Powers.”

Phantom stared.

Peter tries not to fidget and stares back.

“What –”

“So, you just, went on this fieldtrip,”

“Yeah.”

“Got bitten by this spider.”

“Yes.”

“And got powers the next day.”

“… Yeah? Pretty much?”

Phantom raised a brow. “You know that correlation is not causation, right? What if that was just a normal spider? That maybe you did not, in fact, get powers from a spider and it was something else? For example, something that happened in your sleep instead?”

Peter stares blankly ahead. “… oh my god.” He squints and sharply turns back to Phantom. “ _No_ , it was by that spider! Nothing happened that night! I got really sick, couldn’t sleep, and woke up better. Superhero-like better!”

Phantom raised a brow.

Peter could also say that this fieldtrip with his class was at Oscorp, and they were the first high-school students ever to be permitted entry. Oscorp, which was infamous for its state-of-the-art biology experiments on crossing human and animal/insect/reptile DNA to make other superhumans and in the process do things like eradicate cancer. But if Phantom gave a decent search on google and looked up when ‘Spiderman’ appeared, then cross examine that- at the _least_ \- Phantom could narrow down his identity to who Spiderman was within a group of twenty-four students or so, if Peter was lucky.

And he was rarely lucky.

However, Phantom’s argument about the unlikelihood on if a spider gave him superpowers still stood. None of Oscorp’s human-animal experiments have ever been stable. While they made huge leaps in science – nothing rarely made it, safely, to human trials. Most of it were still blueprints, or simply ideas. Not to mention that there were strict laws on storing and editing human DNA. That’s still not touching the obstacle of finding volunteers who would willingly allow their genetic code to be completely re-written. The odds of there being a radioactive spider just existing was already unlikely.

Peter’s frown deepens as his brows furrows.

Even _if_ there was an illegal, genetically altered, spider that Oscorp never mentioned escaped, why was Peter Parker, a nobody from Queens, the only person with the alleged spider powers? Between the scientists that handled it or the other students in that class, and all the people who worked there day in-day out, what were the odds of the spider not biting anyone else? And if Oscorp was responsible, if a genetically altered spider went missing, they would’ve written down everything because that’s just what experienced scientists _do_ with science. A spider, missing or no, should have been an easy experiment to repeat. Though that is putting cost, time, and materials aside. Still, Peter shouldn’t be the only person with his abilities showing up on the news, there should be more to this.

Powers aside, how deeply was Peter’s DNA altered? How deep does this go?

“You’ve been awfully quiet there, buddy.”

Peter looks at the spider on the ceiling.

“It’s not going to work.” Peter says, with less convention then before.

“Alright,” From the corner of his lens, he sees Phantom gestures to the spider on the ceiling and says. “Prove me wrong.”

“Uh… hm.” Peter puts his hand on his chin and considered the options. “Um, _pspspsps_? Here spider, spider?”

Not much happened. The spider twitched its legs and Phantom snickers.

“Alright, so maybe it was a bit of a stretch…” Phantom goes quiet when the spider lowered itself from its web and drops to Peter’s eye-level. Twisting and looping around, stretching, and curling its long legs for balance until it four of its bead-like eyes stared back at Peter. If it lowered itself any further, it would’ve rested on Peter’s noise.

Peter starts sweating bullets. “Ha, ha, _uhhh_ …”

Phantom says, “It’s probably a coincidence –”

The floorboards creaks and the walls shivers. Spiders crept out of the corners, they crawled out of the peeling wallpaper, they forced themselves out of the loose wooden floor beams, they scrambled in from the door. Big spiders, harry spiders, spiders with long and sharp legs, spiders of all colors and shades covered the floor, ceiling, and walls. Phantom yelps and his eyes widen as he leaps into the air with an ability that Peter had no luxury of utilizing. Flying.

Like flint to rock, Peter is reminded of when he was ten years old and his aunt told him that there was a spider, at the most, and always, three feet away. Uncle Ben, terrified of spiders, groaned. Utterly devastated by this factoid. And younger Peter crackled along with his aunt.

Peter is not laughing now.

He scrambles up on the bolted-in bar stool and balances like his life depends on it.

“ _Ahahahaha_.” Peter laughs hysterically, with wide eyes and a tense jaw. “ _Oh no_.”

“Fuck!” Phantom yanks him into is arms so quickly that the sheer momentum almost crashed their heads together, but missed by a mere fraction, and carries Peter bridal style. “ _Fuck_!”

Peter clinches fist-fulls of the loose hazmat suit as Phantom darts out of the bar.

They go up the stairs and go past the lights so fast that they blurred together, and the edges faded. The rain beats down like glass shards, even through Peters mask and body. Peter can’t imagine what the rain must feel like to Phantoms naked and bruised face.

“Quick,” Phantom says, “Are they following us?!”

Peter’s entire body went cold at the simple and very possible prospect. He props himself higher, causing Phantom to briefly tilt, and make a sharp pained intake while Peter looks over his damaged shoulder. “Oh _no_.”

The spiders pile and jitter over each other like a B-rated zombie horror film, the sheer number of spiders made a solid wave towards the very direction Peter and Phantom were trying to escape to. They spilled out from the gutters and streets, they crawled down the ruined, stained buildings and flowed from the broken windows.

They were surrounded.

“You have to do something!”

“ _Me_!?” Peter yells over the wind, “What am I supposed to do!?”

“You brought them here! Make them _leave_.”

Frantic, Peter yells, “SCATTER.”

The spiders paused, shivered, and dispersed into the dark night. The lights flickered and the rain hammers down as the spider’s crawl back from the ether, like nothing happened.

Phantom looks at the cloudy sky then looks at the dry dark pit in the distance that could loosely be defined as the set of stairs from the bar they just left. “Do you-”

“I am not going back in there.”

“Alright.”

“This,” Peter says, wagging a finger at him. “This was your fault.”

“… Ok.” Phantom admits, looking amused at Peter’s gesture. “Maybe a little.”

“” Summon the spiders, Spiderman. Prove, _prove_ that you’re a Spiderman! “”

Phantom snorts. “Ok, but! Now you know. Some burglar comes around and you can pipe-piper some good old-fashion terror into ‘em.”

“Look.” Peter says flatly. “I’m not having innocent spiders as my pawns and send them to die via by terrified stomping feet. I don’t like them, but they deserve better. Secondly, I’m not going to terrify myself also in the process. That’s just asking for everything to backfire.”

“I mean,” Phantom says, “you’re not wrong.” He looks back again at the cloudy dark sky. “Now what?”

“Think we should call it a night?”

“… no…” Phantom shakes his head, “I don’t want to go home yet.”

Peter thinks about his room and grimaces. “Me neither. Wanna walk around and stop whatever trouble will happen in the meanwhile?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Phantom sets Peter down.

The rain, while it didn’t let up, it did soften. That’s when a light mist started rolling in, easily seen right through with the streetlamps. They walk quietly down the streets and walk onto the empty sidewalks. It was a silent agreement; they didn’t need to swing through the buildings or fly at neck-breaking speed. They walk side by side as the rain hits gently.

It’s uneasy, the quiet streets and the utter lack of cars. There were no birds, no people, nobody begging at the streets or exploring the empty houses, nobody came to them. Nobody walked pass them. Lights didnt glow or flicker from the windows. And a few days ago, there were people. Peter saw them use this reconstruction sight to cut through traffic, he saw people walk through, even through the late night. This was completely deserted only recently.

“I thought this was the city that never sleeps?” Phantom’s voice echoes past the concrete, and spreads far.

Peter frowns, because it is strange. It’s unusual, that the only other living thing Peter has seen was the spiders that came creeping in. “Oh, yeah, I have no idea what’s going on here. But, uh, in other news, I tried looking you up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, all that came up was Phantom of The Opera. Also, Amity Park did show up, several across the states, actually, but with anything close to your Amity Park, all that came up was a Stephen King novel.”

“Who’s Stephen King?”

Peter stares for a solid three seconds. “… Doesn’t matter. Point is, you pretty much don’t exist.”

“Seriously?”

“Dead serious.”

Phantom chuckles. “ _Nice_. But what the fuck. Also, I tried to look you up, too.”

“What came up?”

“Just pictures of guys covered in spiders from the yearly competition.”

Peter stops walking and stares. “Yearly… competition?”

Phantom stops drifting and looks back. “The bug fair competition, usually the bugs –”

“Spiders are not bugs,”

“Whatever, usually the bugs are supposed change yearly, but spiders are a favorite.” Phantom says, “Point is, I couldn’t find anything about four-year disappearances, or real superheroes, or aliens being real. Nothing. Either it was ghosts, Halloween costumes, or locally published fiction books.”

Peter starts walking again and Phantom follows, “Weird.”

“Yeah.”

“You can almost say…” Even though Phantom can’t see it, Peter smirks. “That it’s a media dead zone.”

Phantom snorts. “Regardless, I know a guy that’s pretty amazing with technology, maybe he can get through this ‘wall’ or whatever the tec-geeks call it. Maybe then we’ll catch up with whatever happened to the rest of the world.”

“You could ask me, if you want.”

“I figured,” Phantom tells him, “But it’s not just looking for answers, it’s just as much the fact that this is a problem that needs to be solved.”

“Gotcha. I also know some people too,” Peter tells him, “I can ask around and see if there’s something we can try to figure out on the other end.”

“Thanks –”

Peter stills and the hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms rise as a chill shoots up his spinal cord and settles in his skull, leaving his nerves feeling like static. A gun shot echoing loud and clear rings through the street, followed by a sharp boom. It can’t be too far because Peter can smell the gunpowder that reeked of smoke from the ignition.

There are three more shots in rapid ignitions.

Phantom stills when he hears it too and his brows furrow in concentration and determination, “Those aren’t fireworks, are they?”

_Uncle Ben was lying on the cold concrete, and Peter was trying to stop the bleeding –_

“No.” Peter’s voice is numb, even to his own ears. “They’re not.” Peter blinks, however, when Phantom lifts him off the ground again. “Uh, I can –”

“Swing really fast, I know, but I can turn the both of us invisible and intangible.”

So, Phantom can guarantee that they won’t be seen first nor get hit by bullets. Sweet. “Is that a thing that ghosts do? Then how was I able to hit –?”

“You can’t be intangible _and_ hit someone down hard.” Phantom says as he shifts his grip on Peter until he was in a sturdier position. “It’s a two-way street; if no one can touch you then you can’t touch anyone else. Ready?”

“Yeah.”

There is no better way to say this, Peter feels his nerve endings _wig out_. Like loose wires, his nerves became numb yet sporadic, apparently insulted with the poor choice of becoming intangible. And the invisibility was an entirely different ball game.

Phantom’s ability wasn’t like a suit, or a device. Such things understand that the laws of physics were being broken and followed suit. They were tweaked, re-made, rebuilt. Until, like a painting or chameleon, the cloak or super suit copied its surroundings. More like camouflage than invisibility. Phantom’s abilities, on the other hand, was true invisibility. Meaning, Phantom wasn’t simply mimicking his surrounding, light was passing through him.

Peter knows this to be true because mere mortals need light to see, and right now, Peter is blind.

Peter isn’t freaking out, because freaking out would mean making noise and making noise would mean giving their location. Or that would mean Peter would find out that he can’t make a sound because his vocal cords are intangible, which is kinda worse because that would mean he basically does not exist right now. Which, that’s looking like the case because Peter can’t hear anything. He can’t hear the raindrops hitting the ground or the buildings. He can’t hear the wind hissing past them as Phantom flies. He doesn’t smell the smoke from the gunshots, the sewers, or the wet dirt.

All Peter can feel was his hands clinching Phantoms hazmat suit and his arms looping around Phantoms torso and neck. Peter holds on tighter because that’s the only thing he can feel. The tension of his own muscles, the feeling of his own teeth clasped together tight, and Phantom. Which, of course. Hearing is sound waves hitting the eardrum and Peter is intangible. Light waves can’t reach him. Sound waves can’t reach him. Of course he can’t hear. Of course he can’t see. Of course he can’t touch, or smell. Technically, he doesn’t even exist.

Suddenly, the light hits him even if it’s still the dead of night. Peter winces as all his senses flood in like a switch flipped. The rain is hitting on his suit, the breeze bristles the trees in the distance, they’re in an alleyway that reeks of piss and wet garbage.

Phantom points dead ahead where the construction sight was, and the deep hole in the ground. “ _There_ ,” Phantom whispers, his voice only audible because of his eerie, natural echo carrying the sound of his voice. “ _I think it’s coming from there_.”

Sure enough, there’s the click of a trigger and another bullet shoots straight up from the big pit. Adding smoke to the stench of the alleyway, heaver now, more prudent was the smell of an ignition. There is a hollow click, and another, then the clicking becomes more repetitive, more frantic. Whoever it was, they were now out of ammo.

Phantom seems to of realized this too, because they look at each other, then back at the dark pit. Wordlessly, Phantom flies over and Peter aims his web-shooter at a large crane hanging overhead. The sand and drying concrete blurs below him as he swings, flinging himself up and allowing his weight and inertia to circle over the crane, only to break the momentum when he lets go of his web and lands smoothly on top balancing on all four of his limbs. Phantom flies into the mouth of the giant, square-shaped hole as Peter sticks his web on the crane yet again and, like a spider, face down, lowers himself into the dark.

“Karen, turn on a light please.”

 _OK. Peter_. A mechanical voice replies.

Somewhere or something on Peter’s face or forehead makes a bright yellow light that pierces through the darkness. At the bottom of the pit, was a man with a baggy grey hoodie and shoulder-length dirty blond hair. He covers his eyes from the bright light before he slowly moves his arm down and squints in Peter’s direction.

“Oh, Spiderman? Thank _god_. I’m stuck in this giant-ass hole in the ground and – what the _fuck_ is that.”

The man freezes and looks past him. Peter follows his gaze and there was Phantom, drifting with wide unblinking eyes from across the void. The man backs into a wall and once more lifts the gun, despite how they all know that it’s no longer loaded.

“This is Phantom,” Peter tries to reassure, “He’s cool. Besides, this is New York. C’mon, we’ve all seen worse –”

“No. No, no, no. This… this is different.” The man jerks the gun towards Phantom’s direction. “That thing is different. It…” The man struggles to find the right words. “It feels, bad. It feels _wrong_.”

“But,” Peter looks back at Phantom who shrugs, equally confused, and looks back at the man. “But, he’s just floating there? I know you and I have seen other supers who float. And, well.” Peter sneaks another look. “He also glows, but my man, that’s all he’s doing?”

“ _That’s not it_.” The man hisses with a surprising amount of venom. “It wasn’t just me, see, it was everyone. Everyone! Everyone felt this _chill_ this _thing_ and fucking ran. People dissaper for no good reason, people reappear for no reason, aliens destroy shit for no reason, and if ya, somehow, ya feel a fucken chill ya get the _fuck_ out of there. Me, on the other hand? I got stuck like a fucken moron.”

“Why,” Phantom says and the man winces at the echo. “Do you have a gun?”

The man stares at him like he’s crazy. “Because this is New York? The hot spot for crazy shit? Was visitin’ my gran and a mean ugly angry bastard came crashing through the apartment window. Took the old man’s, god rest his soul, rifle off the wall and that the only reason me and my gran are still around to this day.”

Phantom blinks dumbly. “Your antique rifle was not only allowed in the apartment and loaded but it also _worked_?”

“Couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.”

The more he talked to Phantom the more the man seemed to calm down. His face stopped looking so bone white, his muscles loosen, and his gun lowers.

“I suppose,” Phantom adds grudgingly, “That we wouldent of been able to find you without it.”

Spiderman frowns, “You’re still _way_ too into the second amendment…?”

“Just Jones is fine.”

“Jones, then. Seriously, what if you shoot someone?”

“What if another alien with big-ass teeth tries to maul me like a motherfucker again?”

Peter’s frown deepens because he still disagrees, but honestly, what do you even say to that? “Dude. You could still shoot someone –”

“Are you gonna get me outta this big-ass hole or not?”

Phantom is the one that picks him up. As Peter climbs up the string, he see’s Phantom drift away from the edge. When Peter reaches the top, Phantom places the man down.

“All good now?” Phantom asks.

“Yes-um.” The man, Jones, says. “And, uh, sorry about…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Phantom says, “I’m a ghost. I scare people all the time.”

Under his breath, Jones mutters something along the lines of, “so there’s ghosts now too, huh?” But he shakes his head and says, “Alright, imma head home and check on my gran now.”

“Right.” Phantom says. “Have a good night.”

“Tell your gran I said hi!” Peter says.

The man gives a wave before stuffing his hands, and gun, into his hoodie pocket.

Once he was far in the distance, Peter turns to Phantom. “Maybe we should’ve taken his gun.”

“Then what? Where would we put it? Worse comes to worse, he’ll rob someone with an unloaded gun.”

“… Phantom.”

“I just realized how that would still be messed up as soon as I said it out loud let’s just follow the bastard.”

“Yup, yeah, agreed.”

They followed him all the way home. Turns out, he really was just going back home to his grandma.

“Oh, ok that good, let’s just –”

“Ok.” Peter says, “Phantom? You go in – invisible and all – and steal his gun.”

“ _What_.”

“He could shoot someone!”

“Aliens with _sharp teeth_ tried to eat him! And his grandma!” Phantom points at the broken, Duct-taped up window. “Can you guarantee that it’s _not_ gonna happen again?”

“Well, no. But he’s carrying a gun! _Everywhere_. Like a crazy person.”

“Look, I’m not saying that he’s right but he’s not wrong either.”

“Look. Let’s say that where in, god forbid, Ohio.”

Phantom makes a face. “Ok?”

“And there’s a bear problem –”

“I don’t think there’s bears in Ohio, Spiderman –”

“Just hear me out!”

“Ok.”

“So,” Peter repeats. “There’s a bear problem.”

“Alright.”

“If everyone carried a gun, a lot of people would be in danger.”

“… ok. But there’s a _bear problem_ in _Ohio_.” Phantom adds, “Where there shouldn’t be bears. That’s a pretty big problem.”

“Yeah but there’s better ways to solve the problem then guns! It’s not safe, it makes it harder to report a person who carries a gun because they’re robbing a store, and frankly the more people who get guns the more likely you’ll get the scenario of crazies trying to do thing like shoot a sand storm or hurricanes.”

“Yeah that does sound like a problem.” Phantom agrees. “… ok, ok! We’ll get rid of Jones gun. But he gotta leave some cash for his busted window and his grandma.”

“Oh, yeah, no question.”

Phantom fishes his pockets. “I got twenty bucks. You?”

“I have thirty.”

“Cool.” Phantom says. “I’ll take the cash and take the gun.”

“Man,” Peter says. “I wish I had more on me.”

“Yeah fifty isn’t nearly enough.” Phantom says. “But it’s all we got.”

Phantom fades out of sight, and after twenty minutes or so, he comes back in with the gun. “Uh.” Phantom looks at the gun, then he looks back at Peter. Before the gun fades until its only an outline and a strange blue hue before stuffing it in the sidewalk. “There.” He says. “It’s gone.”

“… Alright, that’s good enough for me.”

“Cool.”

“Wanna walk?”

“Sure.”

They once again start walking side-by-side. Peter peels his eyes away from the sidewalk and looks back at Phantom. “I was just thinking. We could clean up that abandoned bar.”

Phantom tilts his head. “I mean, we could.”

“We could! It’s gross now, but we could get it looking nice and it will be a good hang-out place for me and you.”

“That does sound nice.”

“We get some brooms, some Windex or something.”

Phantom nods. “Yeah, we could. We could up-grade from gross to a lil’ run down.”

“Yeah, that’s reasonable.”

So, tomorrow?” Peter asks, “Same time?”

“Tomorrow sounds good.”

)*(

Peter crawls up his bedroom window. He slowly opens it, soundlessly, and crawls in. He doesn’t turn on the light, he would know his room like that back of his hand. It’s seared into his brain, but at the least, he doesn’t have to look at the room. He gets changed, he brushes teeth, he tries to lie down. His bed sinks in, cradles him exactly like it should, and creeks exactly like it would four years ago.

He’s tired, under his eyes are starting to be permanently a dark black, but Peter frowns and gets up once more and drags the blanket behind him.

He goes to the couch downstairs, and the minute he settles in he falls into a deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, Plot is gonna happen.

**Author's Note:**

> Literally this fic only exists because of The Ghost of Heroes. Also I hope you enjoyed!


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